摘 要

希腊神话与中国神话,作为人类文明早期的文学艺术形式，处在不同文化背景之下，对各自文化价值观和民族性格的形成具有深远影响。本课题所选视角独特，对上述两个神话体系中关于“爱”这一主题的表现形式进行探究和比较，而非笼统地对比两种神话的方方面面。在此基础上，进一步分析二者差异对各自文化所产生的影响。众所周知，爱，是人类社会得以传承与发展、维系人与人之间关系的重要情感纽带。对这一概念的不同理解和阐释，很大程度上影响着不同文化价值观的形成，继而产生文化间的对立。意识到差异存在之后，是不是就可以得出“差异必然导致冲突”的结论呢？在当今以和平与发展为主题的全球化背景下，这也是本课题研究的着眼点和立足点之一，在差异和冲突之中，试图发现文化融合的可能性。
论文主要以比较文化学为理论依据，借助内容分析的手段，选取希腊神话和中国神话中与“爱”这一主题相关的故事片段，进行研读。文章首先剖析了爱这一相对抽象的概念，并阐明下文将要进行比较的三种爱的类型—男女之爱、亲子之爱与广（狭）义之爱。然后分类型讨论每种爱在希腊神话和中国神话里的表现形式，对它们之间的差异进行辩证分析，以寻求“求同”与“存异”之间的平衡，为促进不同文化间更加有效的交流提供参考。

关键词：爱，希腊神话，中国神话，差异，文化影响

Abstract

Greek mythology and Chinese legends, both as literary and arts legacies from different cultural contexts, have placed significant influences on their corresponding cultural values as well as the national personality as a whole. Rather than superficially going through the differences between two systems of mythology, this thesis has specifically focused on one topic – love, to explore and elaborate the different manifestations of it. Based on these detailed comparisons, the thesis takes a further step looking into what kind of impacts the differences have caused to their cultural backgrounds. As it is known to all, love, as an essential emotional bond to connect people, contributes to the reproducing and advancement of human race. Different understandings and interpretations toward this concept naturally lead to different shapes of cultural values, which consequently give rise to clashes between cultures. However, is it necessary the case that “differences give birth to conflicts”? This thesis ultimately aims at solving some practical problems which occur during intercultural communications in modern world: though differences and conflicts do exist, opportunities are open for dialogues and amalgamation, especially with the increasingly popular trend of globalization and its theme “peace and development”.
This thesis employs a relatively young subject – Comparative Cultural Studies as its major theoretical basis. By adopting the method of content analysis, it takes excerpts from both Greek mythology and Chinese legends concerning the common theme “love”. The thesis firstly provides an interpretation on the rather abstract concept “love”, as well as classifying it as to lay out the structure of comparisons afterwards. The three types of love are respectively marital love (the love between men and women), natural affection (the love between parents and their offspring) and universal/personal love. After discussing how different types of love are represented in both mythology, inspirations on reaching the balance between “seeking common ground” and “reserving the differences” will be included, propelling better communications between cultures.

Key words: love, Greek mythology, Chinese legends, differences, cultural influences